08 September 2008
Wake me up

KOZZA SMITH, KING'S LYNN STARS

Kozza on his 15 metre heroics against the Islanders, meeting a familiar face and his German mission

I wasn't myself against the Isle of Wight. I'd been a bit crook since the weekend with a little touch of flu. And I've been struggling with my asthma because I haven't quite got the right medication at the minute with me.

Basically after two to three laps it was hard to breathe! I was doing what I could. The first two races I made good gates but then I shredded the tapes. Man, I was about to blow at the ref. Fair enough, I had to cop it for jumping the gun and going through the tape but I felt he had held us way too long. Everything gets hot. The engine, the clutch, me!

Instead I just got back on the bike and got back out there. I knew I was going off 15 metres but told myself that I would have a longer run to that first corner so I could pick up speed. I managed to get in touch and he left me a gap on the final lap. But boy did he make it hard.

Talking to a few people at the end they said I'd tried that on purpose just to make things more interesting. Trust me, I didn't! I like nothing better than to make the start, get away and get the win.

I was happy with the start in my next race. J Lo just made a better one so I followed him home but the last ride of the night I was way off the pace.

I heard it was J Lo's best score for the club. He made the most of those extra races and made the starts. Good luck to him. It's about time he pulled his finger out! No, seriously, he's been going well of late. His confidence is up and he has made the most of these home meetings. We're all on it.

Am I bored of winning so well at home? No chance. I can't get enough of the decent pay cheques.

Richard Sweetman rode for the Isle of Wight the other night. He lives just five minutes down the road from me back home.

We've sort of grown up together and started speedway together. We know each other's boundaries on the track and how far we can push it. I'm glad he's over here and doing so well. But he's only 18 so I've got to stay ahead of him! We had a catch up afterwards and we enjoy racing against each other.

By the time you read this I'm probably over in Germany. We were setting off at 4am Friday morning. I've got an Open meeting through my sponsor to race over there this weekend. I'm also just waiting on a call to see if they want me to ride for the Aussie U23s at Wolverhampton early next week.

Then I've got Reading at Lynn, back with the Aussie squad for meetings at Swindon on Thursday and then Somerset Friday. Clean and strip the bikes down Saturday and I finish up at Mildenhall Sunday.

I'm probably in for two days off in the next week or so. I think the Aussie meetings are against GB but I'm not too sure of the format. All I know is I don't mind the extra meetings. I'd rather be on the track than staring at it.

We were due to drop my mechanic Justin off at the airport and then me and another mechanic were going to drive over to Germany. I reckon it should be me doing the flying! That's the way it goes. But I'll just tell the boys to wake me up when I get to the track.